WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery Thursday in New York for pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease.
Ginsburg, who received a colon cancer diagnosis nearly 10 years ago, had experienced no symptoms from the malady, which apparently was found at an early stage during a routine checkup last month, according to a statement issued by the court.
The justice, 75, will be hospitalized for a week to 10 days at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, attending surgeon Murray Brennan told court officials.
Pancreatic cancer is diagnosed in more than 37,000 Americans each year and more than 34,000 die of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. It usually does not cause symptoms until it has spread. The cancer is detected early in only about 7 percent of cases.
If pancreatic cancer is discovered at an early stage, treatment consists of surgery and chemotherapy, which can extend survival and relieve symptoms but “seldom produces a cure,” according to the cancer society. About 24 percent of patients survive one year after diagnosis and 5 percent survive years, the society said.
Ginsburg’s outlook could be on the more optimistic end of the spectrum because her tumor was relatively small and was found during a routine scan.
“She has a much better chance than most of the other typical patients to be cured of this,” said Paul Lin, a pancreatic surgeon at George Washington University.
The fact that doctors decided to operate is a good sign, several experts said. For most patients, the tumor is discovered too late to make surgery helpful.
Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and has served on the court for 15 years. Legal scholars consider her a reliable liberal vote, though she has fostered warm relationships with her conservative colleagues. She sought to tamp down speculation last year that she would retire.
Administration officials had been considering possible court appointees in the abstract, and that effort might accelerate depending on Ginsburg’s prognosis. The court is balanced with four liberals, including Ginsburg, four conservatives and Justice Anthony Kennedy in the middle.
In 1999, after her colon cancer was diagnosed, Ginsburg underwent surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. She did not miss any court sessions, said spokeswoman Kathy Arberg.
The court is not scheduled to hold a private conference until Feb. 20 and will not hear cases again until Feb. 23, leaving open the possibility that Ginsburg could return to the bench by that date.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that President Barack Obama “has not talked with the justice, but his thoughts and prayers are with her and her family right now.”
Women’s advocate
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has lamented being the only woman on the Supreme Court since the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor in 2006. In the spring of 2007, she vented her frustration with the court’s increasingly conservative tone with two sharp dissents.
Objecting to a decision that upheld a nationwide ban on an abortion procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion, Ginsburg said the ruling “cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court — and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives.”
Later, the court threw out a discrimination suit by Lilly Ledbetter, a Goodyear supervisor who was paid less than male peers. “In our view, this court does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination,” she said.
She urged Congress to change the law to allow lawsuits like Ledbetter’s. Last week, President Barack Obama signed the change into law.
The Associated Press
